"The main objective of psychedelic therapy is to create optimal
conditions for the subject to experience the ego death and the subsequent
transcendence into the so-called psychedelic peak experience. It is an ecstatic
state, characterized by the loss of boundaries between the subject and the
objective world, with ensuing feelings of unity with other people, nature, the
entire Universe, and God. In most instances this experience is contentless and
is accompanied by visions of brilliant white or golden light, rainbow spectra
or elaborate designs resembling peacock feathers. It can, however, be
associated with archetypal figurative visions of deities or divine personages
from various cultural frameworks. LSD subjects give various descriptions of
this condition, based on their educational background and intellectual
orientation. They speak about cosmic unity, unio mystica, mysterium tremendum,
cosmic consciousness, union with God, Atman-Brahman union, Samadhi, satori,
moksha, or the harmony of the spheres."

Ego death is a change in one's sense of self-control. I am popularizing this
term to distribute it farther than it went during the 60s. I am propagating this
venerable meme. Stephen Gaskin was a very popular mystic psychedelic teacher in
San Francisco in the late 60s. He formed a commune in Tennessee, I think it
was, called The Farm. He has a good book out now. I don't recall the title
offhand. The book mentions the ego death experience almost casually, implying
that it was a standard experience.

Zen theorist Alan Watts often equates ego with the controller, which AI
theorist Marvin Minsky would call the homunculus. Ego is the controller
homunculus. Above all, I perceive myself as a controller, a cybernetic
steersman of my thoughts and actions. Normally, we feel ourselves to be free
entities wielding the power of control. But in the mystic altered state, this
ordinary sense of freedom and power is cancelled out. Our freedom expands into
insanely unrestrained freedom, but this freedom no longer is perceived as being
in my control. My loss of the feeling of being a controller is the loss of the
ego's power: ego death. Rationality also keeps pace with the experience
of suspension of ego's control.

In the intense mystic altered state, rationality combines with a radically
freed and innovative imagination to form what transpersonal psychologist
Ken Wilber calls 'vision-logic' -- a powerful concept and powerful mode of
cognitive processing. Vision-logic enables you to feel, comprehend, and see
that the ego's power to control might not really be its own source, but rather,
a result of a deeper level of control that entirely precedes your control. Not
that this deeper control happens prior to your control along the time-axis, but
rather, it thusts forth your control from a hidden place that is beyond your
control. Ego death is not only a feeling of cancellation of ego's
power-to-control, but a rational understanding of the way in which ego's
control can never be powerful in the way we usually assume and feel.

These perceptions of feelings of the cancellation of the ego as a controller
are integrated with the feeling of cosmic unity. This unity is largely the
unity of controllership. Everything I think and do, and all the choices I make,
do not ultimately originate from me, but rather originate from "the
great Tao that flows everywhere", from "God's act of Creation",
or from "the ground of being". If there is no separate me as
controller, then there is just everything that is. Control there is, but no
separate entity who controls.

This is a rough sketch and all the terms are problematic. It is possible to
fully rationally map out and describe this sensation and the accompanying
logic. Perhaps nothing can be proven as true. But this conceptual system is
fully consistent and matches with our normal and altered experiences, and is
therefore highly plausible.

Acid rock lyrics are full of references to ego death. This is the mystic
bridge of death. It is the Dead in Grateful Dead, the river in the band name
Styx. "And you're making me feel like I've never been born." -- the
Beatles, _Rubber Soul_, the song "She Said". Queen's "Bohemian
Rhapsody" -- "Pulled the trigger now he's dead, life has just begun,
and now you've gone and thrown it all away." The more inspired Industrial
and Metal lyrics also catalog the related phenomena. There are dozens of
examples of the lyrical conflation of physical death with mystic ego death of
the controlling entity. These often occur near lyrics reporting the loss of
control and the terrifying status of being a helpless doll at the mercy of
hidden, engulfing forces. The hero retains his identity and stability through
assuming the proper relationship to this dominating force. In the proper
relationship, ego is cancelled and yet preserved as a useful illusion.

Ego is not entirely false. To say that "ego dies" really means,
more precisely, that the cognitive structure labelled 'ego', and the egoic mental
model of the world, are systematically re-conceived, just like the components
of Newtonian physics were systematically re-conceived to form the new system of
Einsteinian physics. Ego death means that the mind no longer centrally
identifies with the ego. The locus of control or origin of control is no longer
seriously taken to be the ego. The transcendent mind knows that there is a
source of control underlying the ego, and that ego's power of control is an
epiphenomenon.

Imagine yourself as a Godlike entity -- an ultimate controller. Like Kurt
Vonnegut, you create a character in a novel, a figure in a cartoon, or an agent
in a virtual world shown on a computer screen. You have the power to make this
entity shake his fist at you and rebel. You can make him act as though he
creates himself and steers his own actions, unrestrained by you. But
ultimately, you are the real, higher or underlying source of his every
decision. On strong doses of LSD, you feel yourself to be like such a
character, awakened to his complete dependence on a higher, prior, hidden
author: his God, his real controller. This awakening into the illusory aspect
of ego's power-to-control is a powerful feeling of cancellation of the heart of
ego. This is the experience of ego death, the essence of religious rapture --
the sense of the heart of your control being raped and trumped by an
underlying, hidden source of control that must exist prior to, or giving rise
to, your every act.

How can that which has no true existence die? It is crude to say that
"ego has no true existence". The definition or meaning of the term
'ego' is highly problematic. Whether ego "truly exists" or not
totally depends on the assumed meaning of 'exist' and 'ego'.

Ego is some ways exists. Ego is some sense can die.

You've got to learn to think in terms of words as signifiers that can
take on multiple meanings, referents, or sets of associations.

There is 'ego'(1) and 'ego'(2).

'Ego' in the term "ego death" means, say, 'ego'(1) but not
'ego'(2).

The senses or usages must be differentiated, and only then can the
discussion make any progress.

What is it that ego-bashers bash? If there is no ego, as they claim, then
why do they get so upset about ego? Ego is not simply nothing at all. The
typical newage mode of discussing ego is extremely naive and clumsy and will
never get anywhere.

The problem is not to promote ego, as in Ayn Rand's objectivism, or to
condemn ego as evil, as in New Age, nor to deny the existence of ego, also as
in New Age. The problem is to explain all the meanings, concepts, experiences,
and usages of those things or patterns that can well be labelled 'ego'.

In ego death, you feel a unity with the entire world, but also, you
experience the loss of your power of self-government. The first scope-of-concern
is "being"; the second is cyber-agency, that is, personal
governorship, personal steersmanship, self-steering, self-guiding,
self-controlling.

Ego transcendence; ego death; the futility of the approaches that demonize
ego

The problem is not to promote ego... or to condemn ego... THE PROBLEM IS TO
EXPLAIN all the meanings, concepts, experiences, and usages of those things or
patterns that can well be labelled 'ego'.

To declare ego flat-out nonexistent is to FAIL TO EXPLAIN anything.

Psychoanalysis sure involves a lot of conceptualization, thinking, and
critical interpretation. A lot of "speculation", you could say. What
is psychoanalysis if not a school of philosophy that claims to improve people's
mental functioning? Abstract philosophy has as much potential to affect lived
existence.

You might want to briefly explain 'soma' and clarify "look to the self
as holding more critical weight".

Yes, I am doubtful about the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and New Age
cliches about "healing the ego". Zen is ineffective and inefficient
to the extreme. 30 years of sitting and being utterly frustrated is extreme.
The broad path of Buddhism is a dismal failure. How many has it enlightened?
There are distant rumors of one here, another over there... nothing more.
Buddhism has become so dark that it has become proud of how elusive its
knowledge is, how difficult its way is, what an all-consuming challenge it
makes of enlightenment.

All existing paths to enlightenment are profoundly unsatisfactory. They practically
don't work. Who would disagree? Who would claim that many have been
enlightened? Who would claim the rewards of these "paths" to be
reasonably attainable? Paths, paths, that is their problem. They are a path
that leads on, and on, and on, the signs ever announcing "Enlightenment,
Next Exit", but the exit never comes.

A road that never arrives makes for a journey drawn on by false promises,
made wearisome by the endlessly extention of frustrated anticipation. The only
joyful release available through such a path comes upon arrival at the only
real destination the path ever led to: the joyful release into cynical nihilism
and radical skepticism.

The only "path" to fully experiencing and comprehending ego death
and transcendent knowledge is whichever path integrates dedication to
comprehensible explanation with the fullest intensity and most extreme heights
of experiencing. No currently available path or approach offers this, but out
of the murky chaos of multicultural perspectivism, such a hybrid may well form
sooner or later.

Mystic egolessness is a more advanced and powerful way of not having an ego.
The mystic both has an ego and does not have an ego. He "has" an ego
in that the cognitive structure of the ego and the general cognitive structure
that is the egoic mental model of the world, remain intact and present if the
enlightened mind chooses to use them. He "does not have" an ego, in
the sense that his mind is not centrally identified with the ego structure
anymore. The enlightened mind knows that the ego is only conventionally
conceived of as the center, origin, and controller of all mental activity.

Once the structure of ego is built, it is preserved and you retain all the
benefits of it, as a tool. In the schizophrenic mind, the structure of ego is not
preserved -- it is effectively dissolved, destroyed, at great loss. The mystic
mind advances through the ego and preserves the ego for its use; the insane
mind destroys its ego and therefore loses the ability to use the ego. It is
very bad to 'lose' the ego in the sense of destroying it. You only want to lose
your ego in the sense of wiggling out of identification with it. You can only
healthily lose your ego by constructing a mental conceptual system that is more
integrated and consistent and true than the ego. Without a solid new
foundation, you cannot leave the old accustomed foundation. It is not enough to
find that the ego is (partly) false, you must identify and comprehend the true
nature of the mind, self, and world, and their relationships. You must build a
new world before leaving the old world, and even then, you must not destroy
the old world -- just loosen it. Even the master engages his egoic
structures almost all the time throughout the day -- but he knows they are
largely based on invalid logic and on dreams taken as waking reality.

Alan Watts translated the eastern philosophies into words the Western mind
could relate to. I admire Watts' style and goals of communication. He also
proved his ability to write in the scholarly mode: _The Supreme Identity_,
_Behold the Spirit_.

Watts focuses on enlightenment through taking frustration (about poor
control) to its full development. Then you understand the true nature of
control, through wrestling with it. Underlying all this wrestling with
self-control is a deeper source of control that trumps our control. You learn
to mentally see this prior or deeper level of control: the ground of being,
from which emanates our every thought, choice, and mental tension. The only way
to "trust" and "stop controlling" is to discover and
clearly conceptualize the nature of self-control, and its relationship with the
ground of being, or "the great Tao that flows everywhere". Then you realize
that all your controlling has always been, by its very nature, flowing from a
source beyond your control. Then, you are logically, conceptually forced
to see that trusting is the only possible action, because you have always been
at the mercy of the Tao, that intrudes even into your decisions. This isn't the
very clearest wording possible, but it's how Watts describes the essence of
enlightenment in _The Way of Zen_ and in the essay "Zen and the Problem of
Control" in _This Is It_.

The Tao's control underlies all our sensation of lack of control and
self-struggle, our inability to force and restrain our own thoughts, and our
inability to silence our own mind. Watts portrays the method of Zen as
"enlightenment through the complete frustration of control".

Watts' genius, in my view, is the discovery of the connection between
self-control cybernetics and Zen. My philosophy fully highlights this
connection and makes it central. Self-control cybernetics is the foundation of
my system of philosophy.

The way to escape ego and control is by pushing and magnifying ego and
control to their utter limits, till they collapse of their own weight. Do not reduce
and moderate ego and control. Rather, blow them up to make them fully visible
in the light. The way to ego transcendence is to blow up ego.

If you all manage to get ahold of any genuine LSD, rather than blank paper,
don't waste it, but do massive heroic doses. If you are about to commit some
moral transgression against your own will, as your will threatens to transcend
and cancel itself out, many people have found that taking a praying stance of
doggie-like submission, and praying to some God Of Predetermined Fate, will
re-stabilize you, so that you become a cybernetic puppet of the master controller.
Thus, knowing this technique of harnessing God's power (hah!) you can trip
harder than ever, into the master level.

Whatever you do, don't think about the cybernetic steersman and losing
control of your will.

God or Fate, I am just clay in your hands, you master of puppets. Authorship
of actions cannot originate from the inner homunculus who lives inside my
brain. I don't know if God exists, but I have seen Fate, nonduality, and
eternal predetermination with my own Eye.

...the incoherence and multiplicity of Christianity, as opposed the the
conversative implication that there is a single, coherent Christianity.

God and Christian morality is as incoherent as our own core of logic about
our sovereign independent agency. He says he is the one who puts our
will and thus our specific actions into us, but then condemns or glorifies us
arbitrarily, to demonstrate His power. Even so, he continues to treat us as
morally self-authoring entities, the origins of our actions. But he continues
to maintain that it is not us, but only Him, who is the origin of our will,
while still condemning or praising us. How can the potter be morally angry and
impatient at his own clay products? God's moral attitude is manifestly incoherent
or self-contradictory.

So then He has mercy on whomever He wills (chooses) and
He hardens (makes stubborn and unyielding the heart of) whomever He wills. You
will say to me, Why then does He still find fault and blame us [for sinning]?
For who can resist and withstand His will [if it is omnipotent and controls all
of our will and actions]? But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and
contradict and answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him that
formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has the potter no right over the clay, to
make out of the same mass (lump) one vessel for honorable use, and another for
dishonorable use? What if God, although fully intending to show His wrath and
to make known His power and authority, has tolerated with much patience the
vessels of His anger which are ripe for destruction? And [what if] He thus
purposes to make known and show the wealth of His glory in dealing with the
vessels (objects) of His mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory?

This theory identifies the problems clearly and the phenomena that arise;
the problems that arise when you think about self-control and governing-agency
while in loose cognitive binding (the mystic, religious, dissociative state).
Preliminary suggestions of the problems, issues, possible styles of
interpretation and analysis. This is similar to Alan Watts' indentification of
control as a significant issue in addition to the problem of separate being;
even though he did not go very far at all in detail about control-agency and
control-breakdown, he definitely said a number of major core themes, certainly
enough to establish that there is some major material in this area, without
which, enlightenment is grossly incomplete. I define, in great detail, a
subject-matter and an approach. This dimension (control agency and control
dynamics) is present almost all throughout the mystic writings, but as
strong as it is, it is always overwhelmed by the overemphasis on transcending
the sense (in general) of separate being. This minor topic of control is
actually the core and key, or at least, the bulk of the content. There's not
much to say about transcending the sense of separate being, in general. But
there is much to say about transcending the sense of separate being as a
controller, in which case, we're concentrating on transcending separate controllership
(governorship), rather than transcending separate being. In terms of
scope and magnitude of insight, previous conceptualization of mystic insight,
which equated mystic experiencing with mystic unity of being, have missed
expanding the area that has the most potential: the cancellation of the feeling
of being a controlling agent. Religion does indeed mean "re-linking"
or "re-connecting", but this unity also implies a violation of being
specifically a personal governor/controller -- a removal of governing or
steering power.

Egoic governing power is counterfeit power (crucifixion), illegitimate power
of the created god-king, the would-be self-creator.

Control agency is the missing topic, the key to making spirituality
substantial and relevant and concrete/grounded enough to become viable and
achievable.

Alan Watts was the first person to problematize control and think about
enlightenment in terms of control-agency -- which I point out, is essentially
related to the nature of moral agency, which is the concern and creation of
Jesus/Xty, and which Jesus also probably helps to t'd. How does Jesus'
revealing of the fakeness of his death encourage ego transcendence? It
encourages us to be critically concerned with uncovering the reality from the
appearance, and suggests the idea of "virtual death" -- a kind of
death that is related to governing-agency (control-agency) yet which preserves
bodily life and sanity, even while aligned with and aware of Truth about such
agency. Jesus as dead governor who yet lives past the experience of the dying
of his governing power. Governor-death. Cybernetic death. Steersman-death. The
steersman aspect of oneself dies, in the face of Truth.

The death of the steersman aspect, the death of the moral agent. Does
"cybernetic" concern government? Absolutely; look in the dictionary.
Does kingship involve government? Absolutely; look in the dictionary. What do
cybernetics and kingship have in common? They both are essentially concerned
with government -- the self-govern ... Is government about control?
Absolutely. These are all closely related by definition: king, govern, control,
author, agent, cybernetic, steering, will.

The thinker finds himself in a hopeless situation, oneself as oneself (a
sovereign agent who once was stabilized by existing in the form of a particular
egoic character) runs out of resources; has no choice but to call on a
paraclete (a substitute governor-agent) -- calling on a higher-level
rescuer/controller demonstrates (and establishes) awareness of personal
metaphysical helplessness/ slavery/ creatureliness, relies on Jesus as a model
of the encouragement yet (safe, life-preserving) transcendence of the illusion
of governor agency/control agency/ moral agency. The savior did save
himself, by arranging his non-miraculous healing recovery from the crucifixion.
And prayer means I can only hope that the Author-machine has created my
near-future in a compassionate form that preserves my mundane well-being.
Prayer also marks an attempt to re-engage the egoic character and stabilizing
restrictor -- restrictor of actions and cognition and consciousness; trying to
pick up again one's (relatively safe and stable) accustomed behavioral
boundedness. Regain the accustomed egoic personal habit-patterns, rather that
having no cognitive patterns. Does loose cognition mean completely unglued cognition?

To completely unbind cognition in every way, completely and 100%, would be
instant chaos. If your self-control were to fragment completely, you would die
of a heart attack (that is, a mind-core breakdown). Perhaps cognition can only
be mostly-loosened, not completely dis-integrated. Fear the complete
disintegration of cognition. Hypoth: if cognition completely disintegrates,
then you are not only metaphysically helpless; you are thoroughly incoherent
and have no chance, no way to be coherent. Can loose cognitive binding
completely suspend, completely loosen and remove all mental-construct binding?
That is the sheer chaos, sheer insanity of which they are afraid -- even prayer
to Jesus couldn't save you if your mind completely shatters. MC loosening --
cognitive loosening, vs. cognitive shattering. Want to make cognition rubber,
not shatter it, not merely fall apart completely. That is the feeling for most
people -- that's the worst, not that you'll retain force of will but sans
accustomed code of behavior, but rather, you'll lose force of will along with
code of behavior and along with every other type of mental structure as well --
lose your mental structure entirely, in all ways. That the accustomed
structures and guiding forces, guiding systems are not merely disengaged, but
actually quite beyond the ability to remember them -- "lost" control
in the sense of being unable to find any accustomed cognitive
structures. So that you literally don't know what you're doing; amnesia,
replaced by sheer chaos, entirely unable to conceive of anything but sheer
randomness of cognition. That's the worst possible fear.

the transcendent mental model coagulates, congeals, drops into place, flips
into place - both by literally seeing and feeling it, and by rationally
understanding it in detail, if your rationality is advanced. (in fact,
rationality is required, to enable feeling it). The more you can reason about
ego death, the more you can experience ego death. The more you can reason about
unity consciousness, the more you can experience unity consciousness.